Those Who Remain
by Star-Speckled Dragon
Summary: Just about everybody knew of Dr. Sloth's plans to transform all of Neopia's pets into his mutant army. Just about nobody expected him to succeed. But now he has, and it falls to the faeries and the few pets who have resisted Sloth's brainwashing to set things right. Jeran, Isca, Brynn and Jerdana join in on a hastily cobbled resistance in one final bid to save their planet.
1. Awake

_**Edit:** After some careful deliberation and with the help of a couple reviewers, I've decided to remove the prologue entirely and make a few minor edits to chapter 1 that were necessary to support it as a story opener. I've come to realize that not only is the story just fine without the prologue, but it is actually far more impactful to open with Jeran's part in chapter 1. For any current readers who liked the prologue and/or future readers who might be curious as to what it entailed, I will be reuploading it after the final chapter as a sort of bonus/deleted scene._

Hey readers! Sorry for the sudden extended absence from the site archives; as those of you who have seen my profile lately know, there have been a couple factors keeping me from doing too much in the way of fanfic writing for the past few months. As you can see, though, I've finally managed to get my latest major project up and running!

I've been working incredibly hard on this piece (seriously, you should see the Word document I've been using for preplanning alone), so hopefully you guys will enjoy it! Also, I find the song "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons to be rather fitting to the story; while I'd first come up with the idea before it came out, the song getting stuck in my head was pretty much what inspired me to start seriously working on it, heheh. But enough of my rambling – on with the story!

* * *

**Chapter 1: Awake**

Light. Pain. Power. Dark.

Jeran groaned and rolled onto his side, dimly aware of the unyielding stone beneath his body. His vision blurred only for a moment before giving him a clear view of Meridell Castle's inner wall, but his ears still screamed confusion.

_What happened?_ Had there been an attack? Someone come up behind him and knocked him out? No... Jeran had been knocked in the head his fair share of times, and though there was a dull throbbing in his skull, it wasn't the right kind of pain for blunt trauma.

Some sort of potion, then? He wasn't sure. With a grunt, the Lupe rolled onto his belly and pushed up from the ground. As he did, he idly caught sight of his hands.

_I really need to trim my nails_, he thought. And since when was the lighting in the halls so dim that his fur looked dark like that?

Something wasn't right. The chaotic noise in his ears hadn't died out as he came to his senses, and his head felt constricted and encased. When had he put a helmet on? He hated helmets; most Meridell knights did, and went without them if they could help it.

After taking his sword in hand and shifting into a battle-ready stance, Jeran edged down the hallway toward the source of the commotion. He rounded a corner and peered through a doorway into a room he recognized as the dining hall.

There were pets – all mutant pets, to be precise – everywhere, and they were ransacking the place. Food sailed through the air, some of it landing in swiped potato sacks or open mouths and the rest splattering unceremoniously against the wall. Pets scrounged in the cupboards for silverware, and knives and a few forks went into the sacks as well. One of them was even smashing plates and claiming the largest and sharpest of the shards for himself.

As one mutant came through another doorway, a precarious armful of weapons fresh from the armoury in tow, Jeran tensed and bit back a threatening growl. It was clear what these thieves, or invaders, or whatever they were wanted, but there were too many of them for him to take on by himself.

That was when he noticed just how these mutants looked. They were all dressed in outfits befitting nobles, court staff, or palace guards. Then he recognized one of them: a Scorchio knight who was _supposed_ to be green, though his armour, voice, hair, pretty much everything besides his colour and wild behaviour matched up perfectly.

Something clicked in the back of Jeran's mind, and he took a step back and brushed his free hand over the hard material that covered his head.

It wasn't a helmet.

A pair of eyes caught his movement in the doorway, and a mutant who had been a court mage pointed the Lupe knight out to the others and cried, "A straggler! Seize him!"

Jeran's eyes widened as a roomful of glares settled on him, and he turned tail and bolted down the hallway. Shouts and pounding footsteps followed him, and a spell sailed over his head. There was no time to question what was going on, and he wouldn't be any use in the hands of these deranged beings.

A flash of light to his side signalled the arrival of another mage, and he brought up his sword to block an oncoming attack. After ducking away, however, the mutant Aisha simply ran by his side and fixed him with a pleading gaze that held none of the wild fervour of the others.

Jeran blinked in recognition. "Lisha?"

The Aisha nodded with a small smile and grabbed his wrist. "Hang on!" she cried, raising her wand to form a second portal that she dragged her brother through.

Jeran and Lisha stumbled into a large and dimly-lit storeroom, the portal behind them winking out in an instant. Jeran caught his balance and let his eyes adjust to the light, and his breath caught for a moment before he realized that the mutants now surrounding him still had their senses as he and his sister did.

"Sir Jeran!" one of them cried. "You're all right!"

Another turned toward a Blumaroo in mage robes whom Jeran dimly recognized as one of Lisha's colleagues. "Are there any others?" she asked.

The Blumaroo closed his eyes and let a spark of power play between his fingers and a crystal ball probably swiped from the Mages' Hall. After a moment he shook his head. Remorsefully he said, "Everyone else has either been turned or captured, and the captured ones are already on a ship and too far away for us to retrieve."

Jeran's heart pounded in his chest. "What do you mean 'everyone?' Everyone in the castle? In Meridell?" His eyes swept over the room – there were roughly two dozen pets present, along with Illusen and a few minor faeries. Surely this couldn't be what was left of the kingdom's population? "What's going on here?!"

Lisha fixed him with a sad one-eyed gaze. "We got the message just before it hit. There was a... power... From a ray of some sort, we think, that swept over all of Neopia. It knocked out most of the pets who weren't braced for it, and it changed us. Not only our colours, but our minds; most pets were brainwashed, like the ones you saw in the dining hall. I don't know why we weren't, but we're all that's left in Meridell."

The other mage nodded and added, "Between the colour choice and the starships taking the captured ones away, this can only be the work of Dr. Sloth. It looks like that madman has finally done it."

A strained silence fell over the room, broken only by the faint clamour and shouts coming from the rooms above. Jeran realized with a start that they couldn't hide there for long; it was only a matter of time before the brainwashed mutants flooded the storeroom in their continuing search for provisions and weapons.

One of the others – another knight, Jeran briefly noted – seemed to realize this as well and said, "We shouldn't stay here, especially if we've finished getting together everyone we can. Where should we go?"

The knight had directed her question toward Jeran, and the others immediately set their gazes on him. The Lupe's ears pinned back a little at the anticipation in their eyes. True, he had led Meridell's finest as their Captain and champion before, but never in a situation like this. He had only just learned what was going on, and in all honesty, he wasn't sure what he could say or do to help at this point.

"We... We need to leave the kingdom, for now," he began carefully. "If they're capturing everyone who wasn't brainwashed, we should start by getting away from the heavily populated areas where the other mutants are most likely to be. After that..."

A flash of light saved him from further deliberation. The focus in the room shifted to Illusen, who snatched a faerie summons from where it had just appeared in the air in front of her.

Near-silence reigned again as the earth faerie scanned the paper. After a few moments, she stood up and returned her attention to the others in the room.

"It's from Queen Fyora," she announced. "She has an idea."

0 * 0 * 0

Isca coughed and gasped for air. She tried to ignore the sound of the things that had once been her ears doing the same.

The surface of the ocean churned as thousands of land-species pets once coloured Maraquan flailed about in a panic over their missing gills. Isca herself tried to remain calm – as one of the two who had seen this transformation coming in her dreams, she'd had ample time to steel herself compared to the others – but it was a difficult thing to do with the Buzz she had recently helped to the surface scrabbling at her shoulders, his thin new wings fluttering madly.

The Aisha grit her teeth and kicked her legs in an attempt to stay afloat. The alien appendages were stiff and awkward compared to the tailfin she'd grown up with, yet she just managed to tread water, likely as much out of a sheer will to survive as anything else.

A dark form suddenly breached the surface nearby, and Isca shrieked in spite of herself and paddled back a bit. The reptilian head snapped in her direction, and after a moment of recognition she managed to slow her frantic heartbeat.

"Talek, is that you?" she called out. The Draik still wore most of his maractite armour, which seemed tight on his larger new form. The chestplate was gone, doubtless due to the replacement of his dorsal fin with a set of tattered wings, and in its place he wore a simple seaweed necklace of the same make as the one she'd given to Garin some years before.

"Isca!" Talek swam up to her with a relieved smile. The Buzz at her shoulder didn't seem to appreciate this, and sprung away before turning back to scrutinize the two of them.

Talek gave the other pet a wary look. "It's strange, the way many of the pets are acting now. Even the King doesn't seem to be in his right mind since the transformation." He returned his attention to the Aisha. "I'm just glad to see that you are."

Isca took a moment to observe her surroundings. The land pets, though perhaps slightly less panicked than before, were still a chaotic mess – frankly, she didn't know what constituted "normal" behaviour in this situation.

A barrage of questions forced themselves into her mind. She returned her gaze to the enchanted necklace around Talek's neck.

"You're with the rescue crew, aren't you? Is everyone all right? Have you seen Caylis? We got separated when we were trying to help some of the others to the surface and she went to check past the outskirts."

Talek's face darkened. He did not reply for several moments, but finally he said, "We helped everybody we could find, but I worry that it may have been impossible to track down all of them. By now it will have been too late for anyone without a waterbreathing enchantment or a pocket of air, so we can only hope for a miracle." With a heavy sigh, he continued, "And I'm afraid I haven't seen your sister... Although considering her circumstances, I'm sure she was able to –"

A sudden increase in the surrounding clamour interrupted his thought. The pets around them began shouting and pointing toward the sky – some in fear, but most in rapture – as a hulking metal craft burst through the clouds.

Isca felt a twisting in her gut, and she paddled back again as her antennae lowered themselves and hissed. _A spacecraft? So Garin's stories about the mad alien are true then..._

The ship came to a hover just over the ocean's surface and a little beyond the throng of pets. Massive mechanical doors opened with a hiss, revealing a smirking Cybunny with long thick hair.

"Afternoon, my fellow recruits," the Cybunny called out to the huddled masses, her voice amplified by some kind of hidden speaker. "You didn't think the Master would forget about his once-aquatic soldiers, did you?"

A few metal ladders descended from the entryway into the waves below, and most of the pets began to make their way toward the ship as two more spacecrafts appeared and came forward to join it. Isca shuddered and kept her head low, now certain of Garin's tale.

The Aisha was just contemplating whether she might find a way to swim to shore when the Buzz to her side hissed something about stragglers and lunged toward her. Eye wide, she took a quick breath and dove beneath the surface, kicking furiously away from him and trying to blink through the salty water that she had once seen through with ease.

A muffled splashing sounded above, and the blurred green form of Talek joined her. He removed his enchanted necklace and placed it around her neck.

Isca felt the waterbreathing charm begin to work on her and took a shaky breath. _So this is it, then?_ she thought to herself. _A seer and a swordmaster taking turns with a waterbreathing enchantment in their desperate attempt to slip past these crazed pets?_

Even so, she let Talek take her by the wrist and use his massive wings to propel the two of them more quickly through the water. The din above began to fade into the distance, but she kept a wary eye out for any members of a truly aquatic species that might try to ambush them from below.

Talek began to slow his pace after several moments, and Isca held her breath and handed him back the necklace. As she did, she followed his gaze and tensed – someone was approaching them from up ahead.

It was... a water faerie, and a brightly-scaled one unblemished by the marks of corruption that distinguished the Drenched. Isca forced herself to relax. Surely faeries, unpaintable as they were, couldn't have been affected by this strange power. Right?

In any case, the faerie was too close and too suited for sea travel for her and Talek to flee if there was trouble. She swam up to them and, after saying a few words garbled by the water, produced a flask of liquid that Isca recognized as a waterbreathing potion and offered it to her.

Isca took a careful sip and felt the magic take hold for a second time, allowing her to breathe normally again. An added effect of these potions and enchantments allowed her to see and hear more clearly as well, so she was able to catch what the faerie said next.

"It's good to see more pets who have managed to resist Sloth's brainwashing. Follow me; it's not safe near the city, as I'm sure you're aware."

Isca and Talek shared a brief glance and complied, following the water faerie as closely as they could. After a few moments Talek said, "You seem to have a specific destination in mind. Do you mind me asking what it is?"

The faerie offered him a wan smile. "I do, although it will take us a while to get there, so you're welcome to hide out in the wilds instead if you don't want to make the trip. But I recognize the two of you if I'm not mistaken, and I believe you'll want to fight back. For that, we are going to Faerieland."

Isca blinked. "Faerieland? Why there?"

The faerie paused for just a moment and turned to her. "Because it's the last free nation in the world."

* * *

By the way, once I've finished this story I plan to submit it to the Neopian Times as a series. Because of that, I'll likely keep tweaking it as I go (I'll let you guys know in the author's notes if I make any major changes to already-published chapters) and would really appreciate any feedback on this. Thanks!


	2. To Faerieland

For those of you who read the first chapter when this story was originally posted and haven't seen its most recent edit, I just wanted to mention that the prologue has been taken down and will be reposted as a "bonus chapter" later. That's why the story still says it's at two chapters when you might have been expecting three with this update.

* * *

**Chapter 2: To Faerieland**

A shimmering dome of concentrated magic tinted the overhead sky pink as Brynn surveyed the land below.

It was an organized mess, with pets and faeries alike scrambling to find homes for the refugees that had been pouring in ever since Queen Fyora had opened her gates to them. Guards patrolled the walls and the protective shield around the kingdom, and kept post at the gates and openings to ensure that none of the brainwashed mutants snuck in. Brynn would have been out there as well, but somebody needed to stay behind for the others to report back to, and in any case the cavalry Uni she normally patrolled with had disappeared in the initial chaos following what people had begun to call the Transfiguration. Whether he'd been one of those gone mad or had been captured by the others, she wasn't too keen on finding out.

And so the Captain of the guard kept to her perch on one of the inner city walls, ringed tail swinging aimlessly, awaiting news from her subordinates and scanning the streets for any recognizable faces.

Below and a little ahead of her, one of the guards led a Gelert up to the faerie in charge of assessing those who wished to join the resistance force. Brynn gave the Gelert a curious look – he was bulky for his species, unusually so, and seemed more warped from a normal state than mutation alone should have caused.

"Your name?" the faerie asked.

"Bruno, ma'am," the Gelert replied in a rough voice.

"Place of residence?"

"Neovia, in the Haunted Woods."

"Fighting experience?"

"I've never had any formal training, but I lived alone in the wilds of the Woods for ten years. I had to build up a lot of survival skills for that – including fighting off dangerous spirits and creatures."

The faerie paused for a moment. She gave Bruno a hopeful look. "Neovia in the Haunted Woods, you say... You can't be the only one out there with such experience. Did you come with anyone else?"

The Gelert's eyes were downcast. "No. The earth faerie Illere told me about this place, but she refused to leave the Woods herself. Everyone else is..."

From up where she stood, Brynn winced inwardly. She wouldn't have expected a small town like Neovia to be able to send much support, but for only one of them to have managed escape was cruel, for Bruno himself more than anyone else.

Faerieland was lucky in that regard – if the word "luck" could be applied to any person or place in this situation. Thanks to Queen Fyora's power and the hope that she if anyone might be able to prevent or weaken the affects of the Transfiguration, the realm had been Maraqua's first contact after it was finished warning the other undersea settlements of Caylis and Isca's visions. It had had a decent amount of time to prepare, and because of that and because so much of its population consisted of a race unaffected – or at least, not directly affected – by the Transfiguration, what was left of the guard in the aftermath had managed to chase out or capture the brainwashed mutants before they could overrun the kingdom or run off with too many prisoners. Faerieland was a beacon of hope in a world ruled by chaos.

Not that the kingdom had it easy. It was the one that had to maintain as much order as possible and keep that beacon lit, and it seemed like for every Faerielander who had managed to keep their freedom there were a dozen loved ones, whether within the realm or elsewhere, who'd been lost. Their situation was certainly better than most, but it wasn't quite enough to keep Brynn and the others from feeling betrayed and somehow alone, especially when –

_No_. She wouldn't dwell on that. There were more important things to worry about.

As if to confirm that final thought, a Grarrl knight flew up to the wall and landed carefully beside her. "Have I mentioned how thankful I am that this colour let me keep my wings?" he asked, stretching the appendages; like most of his fellow citizens, the Grarrl had originally been faerie.

Brynn ignored the comment for the time being. "Do you have anything to report, Sir Caiden?"

The Grarrl nodded. "There's a rumour going around that the Space Faerie has escaped the Virtupets Station and is headed for Faerieland with information that can help us in the resistance, although you'll have to speak with Queen Fyora herself to see whether that's true or not. What I do know for a fact is, there's a big group about to come in from Altador. It seems that the entire council managed to pull through and round up a small chunk of its population. There are about a half dozen guards led by the Battle Faerie escorting them now."

Brynn allowed herself a relieved smile. "That's the best news I've heard all day. Bring them in through the south gate; there aren't too many people coming through there right now, so it should be able to handle a large group."

Sir Caiden nodded once more and took off to carry out her orders. Brynn took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the hot summer wind play along her fur.

_The entire Altadorian council_. It hadn't escaped her notice that there seemed to be a pattern to those who had resisted brainwashing – a disproportionately high number of knights and honoured guards, for example. She briefly wondered whether Sloth knew of this particular flaw in his design, but she certainly wasn't complaining. Even so, for _all nine_ of the pets among the Heroes to have actually pulled through...

..._It must be nice for them_. Brynn scowled and tried to push the thought from her mind – now wasn't the time to be getting preoccupied with melancholy. Still the wistful feeling persisted. After a few moments, she finally sighed and let her gaze wander toward the south. She'd been standing alone on that wall for too long.

Wordlessly, she ducked into the nearby guard tower and descended the stairway. As she exited onto the city grounds and through the gate into the outer kingdom, she called out to the faerie stationed by the entryway.

"If anyone comes looking for me, tell them I'm by the south gate. A big group from Altador including their king and the Protector and Gladiator is coming in, and I want to speak with them personally."

While that statement was true, it also helped that one of them was something of an old friend. The guard saluted in response, and Brynn took off at a brisk pace down the streets of the outer district.

It wasn't difficult to spot the Altadorians. As she came up to the gate, Brynn found that not only did they indeed form a sizeable collection of refugees, but a small crowd had gathered around them. King Altador stood at the front with the other Heroes, and she could see Aethia speaking with Torakor not far away. Despite his new look, the King kept as regal and determined a bearing as ever, and the Kougra felt her spirits lift as she began to approach him.

That was when she realized that Altador wasn't the one the lingering Faerielanders were gawking at. Her pace slowed as her gaze drifted from the Lupe king to the small blue Aisha, bent over slightly and half-concealed by a hooded cloak, standing beside him.

The small, _blue_ Aisha.

0 * 0 * 0

Jerdana could feel the eager fascination in their stares.

The Aisha scowled a little to herself and tried to pull the hood tighter around her face, but she knew that the gesture was pointless. The Faerielanders and the other refugees had already realized that her fur colour was not simply the deep cobalt associated with mutants of her species. And here she had wanted to slip by as many people as possible unnoticed and avoid having to dash their false hopes.

Jerdana straightened up and cast a hopeful glance of her own toward Altador, but he was busy greeting a vaguely familiar Kougra who had stopped staring at her long enough to speak with him. She would have to field this on her own.

Taking a deep breath, she reached back and let her hood fall around her shoulders. Immediately every eye, including those of the other council members, trained on her. She turned to address the crowd.

"I know what you all must be thinking, but I'm afraid it will be of little help. My colour is not due to any sort of countercurse; it was simply my attempt at using a shield spell to protect the city." She let her gaze drop for a moment, and a rare bitter edge crept into her voice as she continued.

"As you can see by the state of our people, it wasn't very effective. The only reason I was able to avoid the ray's effects is because I was at the heart of the spell. We still do not know how to reverse the mutation."

Jerdana glanced up again to see that many people were still giving her curious looks, though disappointment was etched on most of their faces. She sighed.

A hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned to see Altador smiling gently down at her. Despite this, she could see the concern in his eyes.

"You sound as though you blame yourself for what happened," the Lupe king said.

Jerdana looked away. "May we have this conversation another time, my Liege?" she asked. "I'm afraid there are more pressing matters at the moment."

She could hear Altador sigh behind her. "Very well. Don't think I will simply forget about this, though. Your peace of mind is still important to me – to all of us, perhaps now more than ever."

Jerdana nodded a bit distractedly, her attention suddenly caught by something she thought she'd just seen in the air beyond Farieland's protective barrier.

It appeared as though a few of the other refugees had spotted it as well, and some were beginning to point it out to their companions. The sky was nearly overcast, so it was difficult to make out, but – there! Another flash of silver-grey appeared through a gap in the clouds.

Jerdana tensed. She didn't like the looks of the looming shadow that seemed to be forming behind the clouds, and as they finally gave way to some colossal _thing_ she took an involuntary step back and reached out with her magic to get a sense of what it was. Its power felt metallic and foreign – electricity-based, with only a trace of magic to keep the technology running smoothly.

Virtupets equipment, to be sure – a starship of some kind now that she could see it properly, and she doubted it was piloted by the Space Faerie. It was more massive than any ship she'd ever seen, likely rivalling the Hall of Heroes for sheer bulk.

Somebody in the crowd shrieked. The ship turned slowly, deliberately it seemed, until it faced the enclosed kingdom. The huge windows lining the front remained dark for just a moment before flickering to life as a massive screen, which revealed the sickly green face of a being not of this world.

Dr. Sloth glared over the pets and faeries gathered below as he asked, "And just what do we have here?"

Jerdana became aware of how eerily still the streets of Faerieland had become when they quite suddenly burst into motion again. The Kougra from before, whom Jerdana now realized must have been the Faerieland guard captain Brynn, disappeared into the crowd, shouting orders to the other guards to get as many newcomers behind the protective shields as quickly as possible. Pets screamed and ran from the sight of the ship, and the turned mutants outside the barrier took advantage of the panic and redoubled their efforts to slip through and flood the inside or to capture their sane brethren.

In spite of all this, Sloth didn't seem to be focusing much of his own attention on the happenings below. When Jerdana took a moment to look up from helping her fellow councilmen urge the Altadorians further in to avoid crowding the gate, she found out why – Queen Fyora had shot into the air and was swiftly becoming little more than a speck of light in the sky as she approached the edge of the barrier nearest the ship.

As the last of the Altadorians came in and began heading for the city, the Faerie Queen's magic-enhanced voice boomed out over them. "You are not welcome here, Dr. Sloth," she barked. "Leave this place and reverse what you have done to our peoples if you wish to see another day."

With their citizens taken care of, Torakor was now leading a group of his soldiers back to the barrier to aid the Faerielanders while Altador and the others dispersed to offer whatever help they could. For her part, Jerdana stood firmly and began pouring her magic into the kingdom's barrier, allowing her power to mix with and strengthen that of the mages and faeries already feeding into it.

Dr. Sloth bellowed with laughter. "Do you really think _you_ are in a position to be making demands of _me_, little faerie?" He sneered. "You are just one puny kingdom. Any outside stragglers you may have picked up by now will have done little more than fill in the gaps left by the pets who have abandoned you, while I have nearly the entire planet at my side. You can do nothing but delay the inevitable!"

While Jerdana couldn't see Fyora's face, she could imagine the hardening of the faerie's expression by her voice as she said, "We will find a way to take you down. You cannot hold the minds of a world's population by force forever!"

Sloth rolled his eyes. "Really now, must we begin making assumptions based on my past mistakes?" He shot her a malicious grin. "What you fail to realize is that I have already won. Honestly, I would have just ignored your little city and moved on to conquer the rest of the galaxy with my new army, but you happen to be keeping a few of my most prized warriors from me and I'm here to pick them up." He waved to her over the monitor. "Goodbye."

That was when the energy cannons on the ship came to life. With an immense amount of power their twin beams blasted the shield, and the assault lashed at Jerdana's very body and forced her back a step as they nearly shattered her part of the barrier.

From up above, she thought she heard Fyora let out an involuntary cry at the attack pounding at her own magic. When she steeled herself and looked up, however, the queen was regaining her composure, her sceptre glowing white-hot with power. Slowly the energy of the cannons began to die down, yet the barrier still held.

Dr. Sloth practically growled. "So you want to play this the hard way? Fine," he spat. "Just let me remind you that Faerieland's protection is also its prison. My guards will keep their patrol around this pathetic barrier of yours, and in three days I will be back with a strong enough assault to tear through your greatest defences and take every puny Neopet that tries to stand against me!"

The alien forced himself to adopt a sense of calm, and his expression turned smug. "If you want your little faerie city to remain standing, you would be wise to hand them over before then. Who knows? I might just take the warriors and spare the weaklings for you to keep playing hero with."

Before Queen Fyora could retort, the screen flickered out. The ship began its slow ascent back through the clouds, leaving Sloth's threat lingering over the kingdom below.


End file.
